P.O. Box 356
Red Oak, Texas 75154
214-587-9610
Lodge Mailing Address:
First Tuesday of the Month
Dinner at 6:15 p.m.
Meeting at 7:30 p.m.
Meet at: Waxahachie 90
303 John Arden Drive
Waxahachie, TX 75165
Stated Meetings:
Red Oak Lodge #461
Honored to have
Past Grand Master
Jerry Nelson Kirby
as a Past Master of our Lodge
Special Announcements:
Last update: July 2022 Red Oak461.org © of Red Oak Masonic Lodge 461, Red Oak, Texas Webmaster: gpeck44@hotmail.com
Birth of a Lodge - Red Oak, Texas (continued)
The Methodist congregation decided to build a church in New Red Oak in 1901. Bell's Chapel building was torn down in 1908 and the lumber used to build a parsonage in Red Oak. Soon after, Lodge No. 461 was disbanded.
IFollowing this, a Cemetery Union Association was organized to oversee Bell's Chapel and the Baptist Cemetery of Red Oak, separate records and funds to be kept. A reorganizational meeting of Bell's Chapel Association was called in March, 1953, when Red Oak Methodist church elected Glenn Bell, grandson of Jodie Bell, R. C. Lowrance and William M. Holder as trustees. The group voted to continue the annual Decoration Day on the last Sunday in April, as chosen in 1927, and also to have a memorial service and place flags on the graves of all soldiers buried here.
There are twenty-three Confederate soldiers, one Union, three World War I, eight World War II and one Korean War buried in Bell's Chapel. Some names of the Civil War soldiers are J. M. Bell, Dr. Conger, J. M. Burkhead, I,. G. Culbertson, Jim Childers, Robert Eason, Samy Fry, W. B. Haynes, Joe Marshall, Billy Pierce, Mose Rutherford, S. A. Rockett, John Sullivan, Tom Wicker and Tom Yates.
One of the hallowed spots in Ellis County is Bell's Chapel Cemetery in the Red Oak - Rockett area. A shaded and quite place where 470 pioneers and their descendants are buried, it has been preserved for posterity by a small group of people devoted to its care and preservation. Some five and three-fourths acres of land comprise the site of the burial ground located approximately three and one-half miles southeast of Red Oak and two and one-half miles northwest of Rockett on Rockett Road.
On April 26, 1970, a Texas Historical Marker was placed at the north entrance of the then 95-year-old cemetery, alongside a brick and granite marker erected earlier. Association members point out that much credit is due Mrs. A. L. L. Feltenberger for compilation of records regarding the historic landmark. The former Miss Emma Wright, Mrs. Feltenberger is the granddaughter of William B. Haynes, an early day pioneer associated with establishment of the landmark. Her aunt, Mrs. Myrtle Powell, assisted her in earlier years. The records reveal that a majority of the 470 graves in the cemetery are marked with identifiable headstones with some birth dates back to 1804, 1807 and 1810.
Red Oak Lodge #461 was re-constituted on March 1, 2007 under the charter of the Grand Lodge of Texas. It shared it’s first meetings with the Lodge of Lancaster #160, Lancaster, Texas until a suitable location could be found in Red Oak, Texas. In xxxxx the Lodge moved to it’s current location of 109 Eagle Drive. The first master under re-constitution was Clark Stephenson.
References:
Information from records of Bell's Chapel Cemetery Association furnished by Fannie Humphries, Sect-Treas. 1994
Picture - Waxahachie Daily Light, 1st pub. 1950's; repub. by Martha Jane Bryce, April 1976. Copyright 2002 Ellis County TXGenWeb All rights reserved.